Evaluation of superconducting augmentation on rail gun systems

An energy approach has been used assuming constant rail currents to compare the actual launch efficiencies of an air defense simple rail gun (SRG) with a similar superconducting augmented rail gun (SARG). The calculated actual launch efficiency of 30.5 percent for an SRG is increased to the 46.3 percent when an adjunct system of superconducting augmentation coils is added, even when using conservative estimates for the design parameters. Launch efficiencies of over 80 percent are shown to be possible in the design of a small (1 m long) demonstrator SARG. In an appendix we will consider the situation of variable rail current for ideal SRG and SARG systems.